“What the hell are you talking about?” Hardy shouted. “It’s just a bunch of coyotes howling at the moon.”
“I don’t think so.” Patterson’s voice was farther away now. “Something attacked us when we grabbed the reporter. It took out Don’s sedan and everyone in it. Then it ripped Jasper right out of the backseat of my car, taking the door with it. I tried to stop it, but it was too fast.”
The howls sounded like they were getting closer. Mac took a quick peek around the side of the toolbox. Patterson was standing all the way out by the big roll-up door at the hangar’s entrance, looking back toward the building she’d escaped from. He shifted from foot to foot, like he was about to take off running at any second.
Hardy laughed. “What, do you think the big, bad boogeyman is out there coming to get us?”
Shouts came from somewhere outside, followed immediately by the sound of gunfire.
“I don’t know,” Patterson murmured. “But I’m not hanging around to find out. Something tells me you’re not making that plane to Mexico.”
Mac held her breath, waiting for Hardy to say something snide in reply, but instead loud gunshots filled the building. She covered her ears with her hands and hunkered down. What the hell was that?
“Come back here, you fucking coward, so I can shoot you like the piece of shit you are!”
Hands still over her ears, she peeked out from behind the toolbox again and saw Hardy standing in the open doorway, a huge automatic pistol in his hand that dwarfed the ones she’d fired at the SWAT compound. She couldn’t believe he’d shot at Patterson. Now she just had to wait for Hardy to leave and she’d be home free.
She knelt down behind the toolbox again, listening for the sounds of Hardy’s retreating footsteps. When she didn’t hear anything, she leaned close to the floor and looked under the rolling toolbox. Hardy was nowhere in sight. She frowned. Why hadn’t she heard him leave?
He was gone. That was all that mattered.
Mac slowly started to get up, only to scream when a hand grabbed her hair from behind and yanked her to her feet.
“Looks like I’ll be making that plane after all,” Hardy whispered in her ear as he shoved that big cannon of a gun to her head.
* * *
Gage slipped quietly through the narrow alley between the two hangars, soundlessly making his way along the metal wall on one side while Xander and Brooks moved along the other. He inhaled deeply, sifting through the barrage of scents on the night breeze that moved across the airfield. He couldn’t smell Mackenzie yet, but he hadn’t expected to—not this far from where she was being held.
He and his small team would slip quietly around to the airfield side of the hangars, approaching from downwind, while the rest of the Pack headed straight for the front entrance of South Salinas Air and the crowd of armed men they’d seen there. He told Mike and his team to be as loud as possible when they initiated contact to draw Hardy’s men away. Then he and his entry team would slip into the hangar, find Mackenzie, and get her out before anyone even knew they were there.
This would have been a pretty simple hostage rescue op if it wasn’t for one factor—a lot of the hangars in this part of the airfield were constructed of lightweight metal. Without knowing exactly where Mackenzie—or any other innocent bystanders—were, there was no way his team could risk firing their weapons in the direction of the hangar. The bullets were likely to go straight through every wall in the place and keep on going.
Mike and his team were going to have to deal with Hardy’s men without weapons. Well, without traditional weapons anyway. For the first time ever, Gage had given his pack the freedom to fight the way they preferred.
“Claws, fangs, or muscles. I don’t care how you do it,” he’d said. “Those men took Mackenzie. By the time we’re done, I want them to be sorry they were ever born.”
Gage only prayed the pure and simple shock value of a pack of werewolves hitting them would be the kind of distraction he needed.
When they reached the airfield side of the hangars a few buildings down from South Salinas, Gage tapped his radio mic three times in rapid succession—the go signal.
Immediately, a long, drawn-out howl shattered the normal background noises of the airfield. Moments later, another howl sounded a little farther away, and then another one closer. At the same time, Gage knew Mike would be killing all power to the hangar, throwing everything in the area into total darkness.
“I think that should do the job of attracting some attention,” Xander whispered.
A few seconds later, Gage heard gunfire coming from the front of the South Salinas hangar, followed closely by shouts as Mike’s team hit the men there.
“Yup, that’s a distraction all right,” Brooks agreed.
Gage started toward the hangar when the sounds of running footsteps caught his attention. Shit, Hardy must have had some of his men stationed along this side of the hangar, too.
Time for Plan B.
He pointed at Xander and Brooks, then in the direction of the footsteps. He pointed at himself and motioned he’d continue on to the hangar.
Xander frowned, clearly less than thrilled with the idea of Gage going in alone, but his squad leader didn’t argue. The goal here was to get Mackenzie out, and Gage wouldn’t be able to do that with bad guys chasing him from behind.
Gage hesitated for half a second as Xander and Brooks stepped out from behind the concealment of the little alley they were in and streaked toward the approaching men. Their attack was so sudden and vicious that Hardy’s men barely had time to raise their weapons and fire.
Gage didn’t wait to see more. Turning, he sprinted toward the target, hoping the noise
